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SUCCESS STORY | AIXSPONZA
Nike USA Inc. | NABD / Aixsponza
GPU-ACCELERATED RENDERING THAT KEEPS UP WITH THE CREATIVE PROCESS
SUCCESS STORY | AIXSPONZA
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Organization Aixsponza
Industry Animation and visual effects
Location Munich, Germany
Founded 2006
Employees 8 employees and up to 30 freelancers
Website www.aixsponza.com
Aixsponza renders larger models faster than ever thanks to the power of NVIDIA Quadro GP100 GPUs.
Founded in 2006, the Aixsponza team of designers and technology
geeks produces compelling visuals that tell stories and break
down complex concepts. Specialties include motion graphics, 3D
animation, visual effects, and graphic design.
For a typical Nike project, Aixsponza obtains an STP file from the
client and imports it into Rhinoceros 3D for cleanup. Next, they
tesselate the models using Mol 3D, and then import the tessellated
polygon mesh into Maxon Cinema 4D as an OBJ file. This process
preserves the naming and hierarchies from the original model, which
facilitates updating parts as needed. Vertex and normal information
are also preserved, thereby ensuring proper rendering of surface
curvature. The powerful, GPU-accelerated Redshift renderer creates
the final visuals.
The workstation used for the performance comparisons in this story
consists of an Intel i7-5930K CPU, 64GB RAM, 250GB SD, and 1200W
power supply running Windows 10. This machine was originally
equipped with four GPUs: three NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX980s and one
NVIDIA GeForce GTX1070.
BRINGING INCREDIBLE SPEED AND REALISM TO LIFE
Nike USA Inc. | NABD / Aixsponza
SUMMARY
> Small VFX studio in Munich, Germany
> Produces print and video ads for large clients under tight deadlines
> GPU rendering absolutely essential to their work
> Replaced consumer-grade GPUs with 4 NVIDIA Quadro® GP100 cards
> Rendering times reduced by more than half
REASONS FOR QUADRO
> 3584 CUDA® cores
> Support for up to four monitors
> 16GB HMB2 RAM
> PCI Express 3.0 x16 interface
> 5.2 TFLOPS peak 64-bit, double-precision floating point performance
SUCCESS STORY | AIXSPONZA
PIPELINE PRODUCTS
NVIDIA Quadro GP100
Adobe Photoshop
AfterEffects
CapturingReality RealityCapture
Foundry Nuke
McNeel Rhinoceros
MOI 3D
Maxon Cinema 4D
Redshift
SideFX Houdini
LONG ON DETAIL, SHORT ON TIME
Aixsponza works directly with the Nike offices in Portland, Oregon and
Amsterdam, Netherlands in a highly iterative process and very tight
deadlines. This process begins with an initial briefing, followed by
scanning a sample shoe using photogrammetry to capture both the 3D
data and the material. Diffuse, bump, and displacement maps in 8K
resolution are required to capture the fibers. These extremely detailed
maps are necessary because Aixsponza renders videos in 4K resolution
and print ads in 14K resolution.
“Deadlines are very tight, and we need to begin producing results almost
immediately,” said Matthias Zabiegly, Lead 3D and VFX Supervisor at
Aixsponza. “For example, we need to create test animations in order to
review the design and direction. We do all of our rendering in Redshift
because it generates final-look results. GPU rendering is absolutely
essential to our work. Even so, iterations take time. For example, a test
Nike render required three minutes per frame. Sitting around waiting for
a render to complete can foster an ‘it’s good enough’ attitude that reduces
both the number of iterations and the creativity of the final result.”
Nike USA Inc. | NABD / Aixsponza
SUCCESS STORY | AIXSPONZA
ENTER THE NVIDIA QUADRO GP100
Aixsponza decided to replace the four consumer-grade GPUs in their
primary workstation with four NVIDIA Quadro GP100 GPUs. This upgrade
was as simple as replacing the cards in the PCIe slots, connecting the
power and then the two monitors to one of the cards using HDMI, and
finally booting up the machine and installing the drivers. Tesla Compute
Cluster mode was also activated on the cards using a command line
interface.
“One of my projects saw the Redshift render time per frame drop
from eighteen minutes to seven and a half minutes with the GP100s,”
continued Zabiegly. “The rendering speed for the Nike project I
mentioned also doubled, as has scanning speed. Even so, these new
cards never get very noisy, and the temperature does not exceed 65°
centigrade under load. This is great, because the GPUs are installed in a
workstation located on an artist’s desk.”
“One of my projects saw the Redshift render time per frame drop from eighteen minutes to seven and a half minutes with the GP100s.”
Matthias Zabiegly Lead 3D and VFX Supervisor, Aixsponza
Nike USA Inc. | NABD / Aixsponza
UNPRECEDENTED SPEED AND QUALITY
The speed and power of the NVIDIA Quadro GP100 GPUs are helping
Aixsponza take on larger industrial visualization projects. For example,
the GP100s allowed them to render the complete dataset for a
Fendt farm tractor for the very first time. The model consists of 32
million polygons that allow close-up views of every component, plus
approximately 5GB of high-resolution textures and HDRI environment
maps—a dataset totaling 24GB in size.
“The 16GB of RAM in each GPU is very helpful for large visualization
projects,” explained Schwind. “Exporting the whole Fendt dataset to the
GPUs takes about a minute, and the near-immediate feedback we receive
in Interactive Photoreal Render mode is amazing. We mainly use the
GP100 GPUs for look development, which is why fast live previews are so
important. Slow renders are tedious and increase the temptation to just
leave things as they are. By contrast, fast renders bring back the joy of
creativity, which induces artists to tweak shots until they are truly happy
with the results.”
The NVIDIA Quadro GP100 cards stay busy long after the artists leave for
the day. At night, the render farm adds the GP100 equipped workstation as
another client, further increasing productivity across all Aixsponza projects.
“Fast renders bring back the joy of creativity, which induces artists to tweak shots until they are truly happy with the results.”
Moritz SchwindArt Director, Aixsponza
www.nvidia.com
© 2018 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, and NVIDIA Quadro are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. All company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. JAN18
To learn more about NVIDIA Quadro and GPU Rendering Solutions, visit:www.nvidia.com/gpurendering
AGCO Fendt GmbH / Aixsponza